SynologyWiki Structure

The SynologyWiki is currently divided into two sections, the General Contents and the Modifications Contents. These two sections are aimed at two different groups, and the sections below will cover what policies that each of the Contents must adhere to.

General Contents

The General Contents contains information for all users who are using the Synology Product, or wish to learn more about our products before purchasing. Information in this section must be presented in the most professional, logical order as close as possible. This information is often given out to aid new users with their Synology product (and Synology Inc is continually receiving great feedback about the current articles on the SynologyWiki) and to make it easy for new users to read the articles, consistent standards must be followed. And example of an "well-written" article is the What is a Backup? article, which briefly covers each subject with a small paragraph, and allows the user reading the article to follow to other reference information for further detail reading.

Modifications Contents

The Modification Contents are aimed for those who are familiar with the science behind the Synology product, and are familiar with Linux. The policies for this section are a bit more relaxed then the General contents, as this section will only to a small portion of Synology Users out there. However, it is recommended that articles aim for this section should adhere to the same enforcement as the General Contents, to maintain the overall consistency of the SynologyWiki and to make it easier for users to learn about the science behind their Synology Product.

Formating

Below is the basic guidelines for all SynologyWiki articles, where heavy emphasis and enforcement will be prioritized for any article that is aimed for the General Contents. There is a relaxed amount of enforcement for the Modification Contents, however it is recommended that the Modification contents adhere to the same standards of General Contents, for ease of reading, and comprehension.

Technical information for Editing Documents

Citing External Links

Please do not cite the whole external links and leave them posted with their full link on the article, this makes for an unprofessional article. Please post links and give names to each link

InterWiki Citing

When ever possible, if an article has background information that is useful for the reader, please cite Wikipedia, using the Interwiki Commands. An article which features Interwiki Citing is the Port Forwarding guide. The Interwiki command for Wikipedia is

[[wikipedia:Wikipedia's article name|short title]]

MediaWiki Editing Commands

To learn about which commands to use to format articles using the MediaWiki Engine, please refer to the MediaWiki Help Manual

The Preview Key

Please use the preview key before accepting the changes to a document, this will reduce the amount of times that an article is edited in a day, and reduces the clutter in the Global Changed History Log.

Article Style

Please write all articles where they remain organized and used the least amount of loading new pages (with the exception of background or further information of the subject). An article which requires the user to view a lot of other articles, or branching out usually implies that the article is poorly written and disorganized. A disorganized article will discourage the user from understanding what the article is attempting to state.

When citing information for background information (such as citing what is a hard drive), only cite the link once in the article. Do not cite the link to a hard drive for every single instance that the syntax hard drive is mentioned in the article. The link for hard drives can be cited again at the end of the article as "Further information."

English Grammar Style

Please use formal English style as if the article is being written as an essay. Contractions of words are discouraged and should not be used. Be sure to spell check the article before posting it.

Note, Firefox has a built-in spell checker and allows for conveniences of correcting mis-spelled words, instead of proof-reading the document in another application.

Facts versus Opinions

All articles on the SynologyWiki must contains factual information; the posting of opinions, or the opinions of other users, anecdotes are forbidden in the General contents.

If there is information from another user which is factual, then do not quote them word for word, this is poor writing. Rewrite the statement to adhere to the policies of the SynologyWiki, citing other background information about the subject is strongly recommended.

It will be at the sole discretion of the user to determine their own opinion, the SynologyWiki sole purpose is to have facts, and reference other facts. The judgment of an opinion will be at the discretion for the reader, contributors are not allowed to pass judgment or opinions onto others.

An example is an opinion is stating that RAID 0 is fast. The error with this statement is that it is fast compared to what? This statement lacks relevance for comparison. Or stating that RAID 5 is "true redundancy" this is an opinion, as there is a system which offers greater redundancy than RAID 5, which could be RAID 6, or SAN systems.

Linux Knowledge

Posting any Linux knowledge/commands/log files about the internal workings of the Synology Server is forbidden in the General Contents. Basically, anything which requires the Command Line Interface, or any information which one user must need to acquire from the Command Line Interface is not allowed in the General Contents. Only exception to this rule is limited to the DeltaCopy article. If the article implies that user must modify the system to do a certain task, it should either be in the Modification Contents or the article should be deleted.

Logic and Accuracy

For all articles, Logically sound and Accurate guides are paramount. Make every single attempt to ensure that all information on the SynologyWiki is accurate, and logically reproducible, every step of the way.
Please refer to the following example where the statement is logically incorrect for RAID 1

You can only lose data if both drives fail is an incorrect statement. Data loss can still occur if the user deletes their data, or there was a malicious attack on their data storage unit. A better statement is...

Data loss will occur if both hard drives fail

Note that the replacement statement adheres to the third person perspective, and is neutral in format.

Point of view

Articles for the General Contents must be written in a Neutral Point of View. A tutorial on NPOV can be found here. A clear example of how different words can imply many different results can be found here, where an example on nuances is used.

Another Point of View which can be used for the SynologyWiki, which is used in providing instructions is Third Person Narrative. Using this standard, the following words, but not limited to, are strongly discouraged and should be avoided: "I, we, you, them, she, he...etc." Articles which use these points of views should be updated to Third Person View or Neutral Point of View.

Uploading Images

Uploading images is welcomed on the SynologyWiki as long as the image has a purpose for an article. Please be sure to keep the image size under 150Kilobytes, and that it is properly cropped to focus on the specific information. An example is there is a screen capture of a software install process, crop the image down to just the program installation Window, this will bring focus to the installation process, and eliminate all of the other information which may distract the viewer, such as desktop backgrounds, start bars, the dock menu.

Communication and Discussion of articles

General policy is that all talk and discussions will use a hierarchy-style of communication, with oldest subjects at the top, newest subjects at the bottom. When replying to a subject, always indent your reply into the subject, below the text. Do not edit the contents of the previous reply to include your reply, this makes for a difficult method of chronically viewing the conversation. Use the colan key to indent replies

Do not delete any previous user's reply.

Always create a level 2 header before asking your question. When replying to a user post, please use an indented table with your reply.

Question Title

Contents
Signature

Reply

Signature

Always sign your name, using the following command

:~~~~

User Talk

When replying to user talk, always reply to where the conversation originated from; do not reply by creating a separate conversation in the sender's talk page. Again, doing so will create difficulties in following the conversation.